Perceived Impact of a Sonographer Educator in the Emergency Department (SEED) on Emergency Ultrasound (EUS) Training

ACEM supports Emergency Ultrasound (EUS) training for all emergency physicians and recommends every department has a Clinical Lead for Ultrasound (CLUS) and, ideally, a Sonographer Educator in the Emergency Department (SEED). There remains an ongoing paucity of SEEDs in Australian EDs. To improve training, an ED-funded SEED was introduced at Alfred Health EDs in mid-2023. This study aimed to explore the SEED's impact 1 year later.

Sequential cross-sectional REDCap surveys were distributed to emergency clinicians across two Australian EDs within a single healthcare service before and 1 year after the implementation of a SEED programme. Respondents' attitudes, use, confidence, and credentialling in EUS were compared before and 1 year after SEED implementation.

After exclusion of Registrars and HMOs due to extremely high turnover rates (75% and 100% respectively) during the study period, a total of ~90 staff members (~85% FACEMs, ~1% Fellows and ~14% Nurse Practitioners, with retention rates > 95%) were included in this sequential cross-sectional survey study. There were 43 responses in 2023 and 55 in 2024, response rates of 46.7% and 61.1% respectively. We found a statistically significant reduction in the number of respondents lacking confidence in all core modules, improvement in eFAST confidence, access to proctored scanning time and a large uptake in credentialling with over 50% undergoing credentialling by 2024.

This study found improvements in several domains over a one-year period and has demonstrated an effective pathway to improve EUS training in departments with low numbers of appropriately credentialled staff.